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It was Saturday morning and time to go fishing. My wife was
gone for a few days to see her brother. That meant that there
were no time constraints. I headed back to the same pond that
I had caught the crappie in before, in "Lily Pad Crappie." I
had not caught many crappie this year and wanted to get some
more to cook up. I will also admit that I wanted to go back and
get some pictures to show what the pond looks like.
We did have some rain showers go through on Friday afternoon.
I waited until about 8:00 am to go out so the grass would have
a chance to dry out. I did not want to get stuck not being able
to go up the hill to get away from the pond. It would be a
long hike home.
I got to the pond and got everything loaded into the canoe. I
had four fly rods with me so I could try different flies to see
what might work. I had two 3 wts, a 5 wt and a 6 wt. This way
if I need to change flies then I change them four at a time and
then spend my time fishing.
I got the canoe down to the edge of pond. I grabbed the rod with
white boa yarn fly with the white legs and cast it out into the
pond. I wanted to see if there were any crappie in the lily pads
near the shore, before the canoe went over them. Eight casts
resulted in five small bass and no crappie. Time to launch the
canoe and see what might happen.
I worked along the shoreline that you see on the left side of the
first picture above. I cast by the lily pads and between them.
I got several more bass, but no crappie. I moved up to the dam
end of the pond and cast up against the shore and brought the fly
back out slowly.
This did work a little better; about every 20 feet I got a crappie.
I did get several more little bass along here. I decided to try
down the far side of the pond, as I know that it drops off faster
on that side of the pond. I was still trying flies to see if there
was anything that the fish really liked.
I did pick up a few more crappie along this shore, but it was not
fast fishing. But I was getting enough to make a meal. I did try
on down the shore to the end of the pond. There was a fish here
and there, but no real pattern to where the fish were.
The one thing I had not tried was to get out into the center of
the pond and cast. If they don't appear to be along the shore,
then they might be out in the center of the pond. I got out in
the center and dropped one anchor to hold me in place. I had a
Marabou Miss on that had some weight to get it down a little
farther and stay there. I was fishing in the area you see in
the second picture.
I counted it down and managed to hook the weeds. On the next
cast I did not let it drop as long before I started the retrieve.
I had brought the fly back about 10 feet when I felt the tap and
had a crappie on. I am enough of a creature of habit that if it
works once then you try it again. I cast out again and it was a
repeat story. Another nice crappie went into the fish basket.
On about four out of five casts I got a crappie. All of these
fish were caught when the fly was just above the weed tops. I
don't know if the fish were in the weeds and coming up or were
just swimming above the weeds. I just know that they like it
when the fly was near the weed tops. This was happening in
about eight feet of water, with the weed tops down about five feet.
I was having a ball when I felt the first raindrops. I looked
at the clouds and was not sure how much was going to come, but
thought it was time to get out of the valley I was in. I got
out to the road and was starting to drive down the road when the
rain hit. It was a fairly hard shower that lasted for about 20
minutes.
I am glad that I was out of the field before that started. Here
is a picture of a few of the crappie that I got.
Hope you can get out on the water. ~ Rick
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